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The floods and fires that swept through our city left a path of destruction that will require years of recovery and rebuilding work. And in the short term, our subway system remains partially shut down, and many city residents and businesses still have no power. In just 14 months, two hurricanes have forced us to evacuate neighborhoods — something our city government had never done before. If this is a trend, it is simply not sustainable.

Our climate is changing. And while the increase in extreme weather we have experienced in New York City and around the world may or may not be the result of it, the risk that it might be — given this week’s devastation — should compel all elected leaders to take immediate action.

Bloomberg has up until now been harshly critical of both candidates, refusing to endorse either.

Perhaps more surprisingly, Bloomberg very directly castigates Romney for reversing his position on the topic, saying that his previous stances about climate change were driven by free-market, centrist ideas. He digs up a quote from when Romney was governor of Massachusetts, and signed on to a regional cap-and-trade plan to reduce carbon emissions. ” “The benefits (of that plan) will be long- lasting and enormous — benefits to our health, our economy, our quality of life, our very landscape. These are actions we can and must take now, if we are to have ‘no regrets’ when we transfer our temporary stewardship of this Earth to the next generation,”Romney wrote.

Bloomberg says that Romney “ couldn’t have been more right” — but then notes that he reversed his position. Then he calls Romney “a good and decent man” who has reversed his positions on many issues on which he was right the first time. “If the 1994 or 2003 version of Mitt Romney were running for president, I may well have voted for him because, like so many other independents, I have found the past four years to be, in a word, disappointing,” Bloomberg writes.

The idea that the climate has been changing because of human behavior, including the release of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane, is widely accepted by scientists. But it has been a politically divisive issue. Will Bloomberg’s statement have an impact on the national conversation?

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It’s all well and good for Mayor Bloomberg to express his political preferences, but if Sandy is the motivation, someone should point out to him that Sandy is probably NOT a manifestation of global warming.

See for example the article at the link below:

“Are hurricanes hitting New York in October a sure sign of global warming?”

I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.

Maybe Presidents aren’t as powerful as candidates. Easy to forget, but that comment was praised by the media just a few short years ago.

The good news is the Pied Piper of Democrats will have a shorter distance to lead them to the sea.

Sea levels are indisputably rising, as they steadily have for thousands of years. We aren’t seeing an acceleration of sea level rise yet, but sea level will rise. This is one of the more black and white elements of climate change.

Hurricane’s frequency and intensity is much less black and white. Although it is plausible to discuss the possibility of an effect in a much hotter future world, it is not at all good science to say that there is an observable effect now. In fact, promoting this scare tactic is one of the more common hallmarks of ends justifies the means climate change political activism.

More specifically, though, Sandy is a special case where current global average temperature is not at all relevant. Sandy is a storm of totally normal magnitude and timing that took a less common path and collided with cold air from Canada, strengthening it and hitting a region not accustomed to annual hurricane strikes. The storm surge from Sandy is quite large, but it is equivalent to a previous storm surge from the 50′s and exceeded by several in the recent geological record of the much colder past.

Eric, The NSF concluded, “Since the late 19th century, sea level has risen by more than 2 millimeters per year on average, the steepest rate for more than 2,100 years.” (https://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=119841), which suggests your comment that “We aren’t seeing an acceleration of sea level rise yet” is as “black and white” as you seem to think. Can you explain the difference, or am I missing something?

I don’t dispute the 2 mm/yr average rate. The black and white I refer to is that it is rising steadily, and if you call the 2 mm/yr already accelerated, then fine. The last century gave us ~8 inches. So, we can blame 8 inches of the Sandy storm surge on recent global warming. It’s likewise reasonable that 100 years from now, there may be a similar addition. But that’s peanuts compared with what Sandy dished out. That’s not my point. My point is that Sandy could have happened with equal likelihood a century ago or a millennium ago. In fact, the geological record suggests that it was exceeded several times in the 1600s (i.e., during the Little Ice Age).

Eric, Let’s be clear about what you mean by saying that sea level has been “rising steadily”. If, by “steadily”, you mean that the rate of the rise has not changed (i.e. it is linear), then your comment is simply not consistent with the data, which indicate that: 1, since the late 19th century, sea level has risen twice as fast as it has ever risen over the preceding 2000 years (2 mm/year since late 19th century vs. 1 mm/year 1000 AD – 1400 AD, the previous fastest rate of rise) and 2, sea level did not change appreciably from 1400 – mid 1800′s (i.e. no sea level rise). By that assessment, sea level rise has not been steady at all and it has gotten much faster since the Industrial Revolution.

That excess 1 mm/year rise since the late 1800′s is 15 cm above and beyond what the 1000 AD – 1400 AD sea level rise added and it is warmer as well. Given the universally accepted axiom that storms at sea derive most of their energy from the heat (i.e. temperature) of the sea water, it is not at all reasonable to hypothesize that storms today would, on average, be stronger and pushing around a lot more water than they did 200 years ago. It is not reasonable to say that all of Sandy’s storm surge can be accounted for by the recent risen, warmer sea level. But I hope you would agree that it is equally unreasonable to say that NONE of it can be accounted for by higher, warmer seas either.

I’m not disagreeing with sea level rise. Acceleration is relative to frame of reference, though. It’s accelerating vs the post-glacial trend, but it’s roughly linear in my lifetime and over most of the time period that NYC has been expanding into the ocean by landfill. Interestingly, though,some of the worst affected areas were reclaimed from the ocean in relatively recent history over this same timespan of predictable sea level rise.

I just don’t think that’s the most important point. 8 inches/century sea level rise isn’t what flooded lower Manhattan.

I agree with the mayor and the logic behind his decision. The environment is key to everything we face in the future. Who knows what Romney believes on this subject. Or any other subject for the that matter.